Because and Other Stories
by bearsbeetsbattlestargalactica
Summary: A drabble series of one-shots and fluff. Originally "Because".
1. Because

**A/N: Here's a quick little Kaider one-shot. If there's enough interest after reading, I might do more, probably with more ships than Kaider, but I don't quite know yet. Anyway, enjoy, and please review to let me know what you think! (Constructive criticism always appreciated!)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TLC or the image, sorry. (I'm a klepto. It's getting out of hand. Jk)**

 **Rating: K**

* * *

Because

"But _why_?" Kai asked, for what seemed like the thousandth time that day.

Cinder shrugged, a slight upward tilt of her shoulders that sent the neck of her shirt slipping down one arm. "Because."

He groaned. She had been like this ever since she brought it up, strategically-gracefully, even, he thought-evading a real answer to every question he hurled her way. "Because _why_?" he persisted, flushing as he heard himself, whining like a petulant four-year-old told they weren't allowed any more cookies from the cookie jar. He tried again. "Please, Cinder. Try to string at least five words into an answer, will you?"

That didn't sound much better (it wasn't. It was, in fact, much worse), but she just rolled her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. I'm prone to whims. Obsessed with things I don't need. Secretly trying to become a superhuman-robot hybrid."

Kai arched an eyebrow, mouth tugging down in annoyance. "You're already a superhuman-robot hybrid, Cinder. You have a computer in your _head._ "

She leaned over and kissed him, her soft, cool, decidedly not robotic lips swiping across his cheek and sending a pleasant tingle down his spine. "It's just something I have to do. Trust me on this, okay?"

This, he decided, was the closest thing he was going to get to an answer. He gazed at her across his desk, steepling his fingers to his lips. When she'd first come into his office about fifteen minutes earlier, he didn't know what he'd been expecting to come out of her mouth. (Then again, when did Kai ever know what was going to come out of his fiancée's mouth?)

But it wasn't what passed her lips, which was, "I want to get tear ducts installed."

For a moment, he'd just stared at her. He'd been in the middle of hashing out an immigration deal with the African Union, but his port had shut off, black screen all but forgotten. "Er," he'd said. "What?"

"I want to get tear ducts," Cinder had repeated, flopping down into one of the deceptively-comforting-looking chairs that really weren't very comfortable at all. (Ah, government.) "There's a surgery that can be done. I already talked to Dr. Liu."

Kai blinked. "Why?"

And so the evasion had begun.

He sighed now, shaking his head a bit. He wasn't done asking questions-not even close-and though there were about a billion more _whys_ still left in him, he said something else instead. "Will it make you happy?"

Cinder studied him, as if this hadn't quite been what she was expecting. Kai hid a smile. He loved surprising her; she was so largely unflappable that it seemed a triumph every time he did.

"Yes," she said. "It will."

And that was that, at least for the time being. But a few days later, when she came back into his office after the surgery, somehow looking brighter-eyed than before, his port almost slipped from his fingers.

She stood there in the doorway, titanium hand pressed to her lovely pink lips, her eyes swimming with tears. They were rolling down her cheeks, dripping off her chin and plopping to the floor. Kai was reminded, somehow, of an old story his mother used to tell him at night before she passed away, of a little girl in a pale blue second-era pinafore and white stockings that stepped through a doorway into a strange world and was so confused and bewildered that she made an ocean with her tears.

And suddenly he understood. It was odd, how quickly it came about, as if he'd been struck over the head with a lightning bolt. _Boom._ She wanted tear ducts so that she could cry. Sometimes, against all reason, it was that simple. There wasn't a complicated answer to every complicated question.

It was a funny thing, crying. He didn't do it often, mostly because his father had always maintained that a strong ruler didn't cry, but Kai had always been of the opposite persuasion. Crying had a way of emptying out the sad and the brutal and the angry, leaving behind an empty niche to fill with better feelings, better thoughts.

He didn't know who or what she was crying for-her sister, Peony, the throne she'd left behind, Cress and Thorne and Scarlet and Wolf and Jacin and Winter so far away, the palace halls she'd emptied, the glimmering lake she'd dived into years before. Maybe she was crying for Levana, or for the mother and father she never knew. Maybe she was crying for the mother she'd gotten that had never really earned her title, or the other sister, the cruel one, that had never learned to love her after so many years.

Maybe it was for him. Kai didn't know. She had so many years to make up for.

He pushed back his chair, striding across the plush vermilion carpet, and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest, but as he held Cinder, as he felt moisture sink into his pressed, wrinkle-free linen shirt, he had the feeling that somehow, her tears weren't all sadness. Tears could be happy too.

"Shh," he murmured, lips barely brushing her ear. "It's alright. I know. I know."

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 **A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Pleased review! ;)**


	2. The Roaring

**A/N: So, I started writing another TLC one-shot today... and realized I have way too many (WAY TOO MANY) thousand-word one-shots or whatever on my profile, and figured I might as well start a drabble. I talked about maybe expanding on "Because," so I made it into a drabble series. Most will probably be romance-themed, but the ships will include popular ones (Kaider, Wolflet, Cresswell, etc.), but also not-so-popular ones for some variety. This one, for example, is about Scarlet's mother and father. They'll all probably be around this length (i.e.; probably upwards of 800 words but not more than 2500, which is right about where I like to sit with drabbles). I'd say that I have a regular posting schedule, but that would be a blatant lie, because I am a flake, and have a horrible addiction for** ** _Gilmore Girls_** **, despite the fact that they sent Jess away. (JESS!) (As you can probably tell from reading this rambling note that is going on for way way way too long, I am also a caffeine addict. Hence the lovely eye twitch that showed up last night. But ANYWAY.)**

 **So, on that note, here's the second drabble, hopefully to be followed by many more. Please review and let me know what you think. Also, if you have any prompts that you'd like me to write, or any specific ships, let me know and I'll do those, too!**

* * *

 _The Roaring_

THE GIRL IN the bright red dress sitting at the end of the bar let out a fresh peal of laughter and nearly tumbled off of her chair and onto the floor.

The bartender surveyed her with a half-amused, half-annoyed quirk of his lips. "That's it," he said, polishing another spotty glass with a grease-stained rag. "You're cut off."

The girl grinned, her smudged lipstick garish in the lowlight of the bar, and pushed herself upright in her chair, wobbling for a moment before steadying. She took one slender hand and closed it around a glass full of amber liquid in front of her, picking it up and sloshing liquor over the side of the cup. "Cheers to that," she said, and downed the rest of her drink in one long swallow, baring her ivory throat in the process.

In any other place, she might have turned heads. Everything about her was _red_ , from her glimmering vermilion dress to her carmine curls to her ruby-colored lipstick. She was curvy and soft, curves pronounced (and, at her plunging neckline, exposed). Her eyes, pale and blue, glittered seductively, and her tongue licked her lip. She was beautiful, and walked and dressed and spoke in a way that said she knew it.

But in this bar, tucked into the back alleyways of Paris, she hardly warranted any notice. It was, after all, the third era.. Men might have trailed their eyes along her exposed thigh, the delicate hollow of her throat, her smile, but she was a dime a dozen in a place like this. There was a reason that the music in this place roared, a reason that it was packed to the walls and reeked of sweat and grime. Cleaning androids buzzed around frantically, but they were no match for the destruction and devastation the drunken and deplorable left in their wake.

She hadn't always been like this. Once she had been a little girl with strawberry pigtails and a spattering of freckles like cinnamon sugar sprinkled over her plump cheeks.

But life had happened, the girl reflected, her sharp, maroon nails tracing the rim of her glass. Parents died. Overbearing aunts took over. Horrible uncles came into her life that made her skin crawl…

"Hey, you alright there, love?"

Her eyes flicked up to the bartender. He was cute, she thought detachedly, but smooth, and charming. He, like her, was a dime a dozen: dashingly handsome, with straight white teeth and a dimple, a slightly crooked nose and twinkling, dark brown eyes, his hair slicked back and clean, one curl falling over his forehead. By the half-empty glass by his elbow, she guessed that he'd been sampling his own product.

She distrusted boys that were charming. Usually, they were up to no good. _When were boys like that ever up to any good?_ But now…

"Fine," she replied, her words falling like layers of honeyed sugar. "How 'bout you?" Her words had the lazy, slurred effect of the intoxicated, but the only indication that the bartender noticed was a twitch of his lovely lips.

"Much the same, I'm afraid." He set the glass down and leaned back against the shelves upon shelves of liquor in glass bottles, their deep burgundys and pale yellows shining like jewels in a glass case.

Her lips curled down into a frown. "Hm."

"Hey, you don't look so good," the bartender began, his words falling easy, light, and unconcerned from his lips with the ring of insincerity.

An android buzzed by, scrubbing a sticky table behind them vigorously.

"I never do."

"Aw, I'm sure that's not true," he said. "You're awful pretty. I bet you're even better-looking in the light of day."

"How comforting," she said dryly, then paused. She knew this type-she knew what kind of game he was playing.

But she knew this game, didn't she? She'd been raised with it.

She wanted to play.

"What's your name?" she asked, forcing her lips to morph into her lovely, placid smile.

"Luc," he replied. "Luc Benoit."

She stuck out her hand, and she shook it, her fingers cool and elegant against his strong, calloused hand. "Nice to meet you, Luc Benoit."

He smiled. "Nice to meet you, too."

 _This might be a mistake,_ the girl thought. _This might go farther than I want it to go. But I don't care. I want to play this game._

Nine months later, as the girl stood above a cradle, looking drastically different than she had all those nights ago, she thought back to those words, thought so bravely and stupidly, as was so often the case with courage. She was thicker now, around the waist and stomach and thighs and everywhere else, her hair matted and tangled, purple shadows lurking beneath her eyes, her lips thin and faded, not even pink, let alone red. Her blue eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. She was not wearing a bright red dress, but a nubby blue terrycloth bathrobe and a pair of beat-up bunny slippers.

The girl stared down at the baby gurgling in the crib, swatting at the mobile with its tiny fists. Suddenly, she picked the baby up, nestling her into the curve of her arms. It was awkward, imperfect. It didn't quite fit, and the baby began to wail.

"There, there, little Scarlet," the woman said, striding over to the window and looking out over the streets of Paris, already wet with snow. Luc wasn't home yet. He was almost never home.

She bent down and whispered something in her daughter's ear, her lips brushing against the few soft strands of red hair on the baby's head. "Never make the same mistakes as me," she murmured. "It's never worth it. Do you hear me? It's never worth it."

And then, with a heavy heart, she put the baby down into the crib, and she quieted immediately, charmed by the mobile as the girl had been by Luc's pretty words.

The girl walked over to the closet, her slippers scuffing the worn wooden floorboards, and opened her closet. There were a few threadbare sweaters hanging up, a couple of boots stashed into the corner, a dresser with a bowl full of stray univs.

The girl unhooked the sweaters from their hangers and tossed them onto her messy bed. Then, with a set of grim determination to her jaw, she reached up high and pulled down an old, creaky suitcase.

Hours later, when Luc stumbled home, he arrived to an empty house and a young daughter, sound asleep and peaceful as the dead.

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 **A/N: I hope you all enjoyed it! Let me know if you have any prompts or ship requests for the next one!**


	3. The Wolves All Sing

**A/N: So, I finished my work early in class today, and I figured, hey, I've got time to kill, so I wrote a little mini JacinxWinter one-shot and decided to submit it. This one is only 700 words, but oh, well. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _The Wolves All Sing_

" _Winter! Winter, can you get in here, please?"_

Winter's hands stilled in front of her mirror, one molasses curl wound around her pinky finger. Her eyes were bright, glimmering pools, staring back at her opaquely. She turned her cheek, her eyes glued to the thyme-green paint on the walls, the bottle of perfume on the counter. She spritzed a bit onto her wrists, smudging the excess behind her ears.

" _Winter!"_

She sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and stepping out of the bathroom. Jacin was standing in the kitchen, tugging at his tie aggravatedly, his tuxedo in complete disarray. He was turned away from her, yanking at his shirt so hard that she thought a button would pop at his collar.

" _Winter!"_ Jacin cried again, but the words died on his lips as he turned and saw Winter standing in the doorway. His mouth clenched shut, but his eyes didn't leave her.

Winter didn't particularly care for these stuffy functions; dresses of crepe and satin and bow ties of silk, androids buzzing around carrying trays of hordeurves, small talk that fell quietly and prettily like tiny snowflakes on a blizzard of a blanket. But it was part of being an ambassador, she supposed. It could be worse.

A smile tugged at her lips. "Is your bow tie giving you trouble again?"

Jacin frowned. "It's not _me_ ," he said. "It's this bow tie. It's evil."

"Mm. I'm sure." She walked over to him, her slender fingers reaching out and slipping the bow tie from around his neck. The pale blue fabric pooled in her palm, and she set it on the kitchen table. She straightened his collar, smoothing it down.

"I don't know why you sound like you don't believe me," Jacin said. His tone was affectedly light, but it trembled, just a little unsteady.

She smiled. "Must be a freak of nature." She reached over and grabbed the bow tie from the counter, winding it around his neck and busying herself with tying it.

"I don't see why we have to go to this function anyway," he grumbled.

"Because," Winter said, her eyes never leaving his tie, "it's to raise money for the bioelectricity chip. You and I, of all people, should know how important that is."

Their eyes met for a moment, honeyed bronze clashing with his pale ice-blue, before he lowered his gaze. "They don't care," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Not really."

"Just because they don't come from the same perspective doesn't mean they don't care," she told him, tying a neat loop and knot.

"It's exactly what it means. They're all just selfish-"

Winter put her hand on his cheek. "Jacin."

He stopped, but his eyes still sparked like a firecracker about to burst. She grinned at him, and got the satisfaction of seeing him swallow unsteadily. "Do you know what today is?" she asked.

"The day of another one of these idiotic balls?" he suggested.

"Nooo," she said, drawing the word out. "Come on. You don't have any other guesses?"

"Winter, I'm really not in the mood to play guessing games-"

"It's my one-year anniversary," she told him.

He furrowed his eyebrow. "Our one-year anniversary?"

"No, silly," she said. "It's mine."

Jacin stared at her. "Celebrating…?"

"One year," she told him proudly, "without a single hallucination." With one deft hand movement, she finished tying his bow tie, straightened it, and took a step back. "Done."

He was still looking at her. "One year," he said, almost tentatively, hopefully. Something glimmered in his eyes. "Not one vision?"

"Not a one," she affirmed, eyes sparkling as she looked up at him. "I'm back." She took his hand and pressed her palm against his. "I'm here."

Suddenly, without much warning, Jacin's hands wrapped around her waist, his fingers crushing fistfuls of tulle, and his mouth smashed against hers, warm and rough and sweet and soft and ice-cold all at once, sending shivers down her spine.

She pulled back, her breath coming in short fits, Jacin's breath coming ragged, heavy. "One whole year," she whispered.

"One whole year," he repeated, and smiled.

 _Awooo…_

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 **A/N: I hope you all liked it! Please review to let me know what you think, or if you have any prompts you'd like me to write!**


	4. Enough

**A/N: It's been a while since I posted one of these, but here I am with another one. Fair warning-this one, unlike the other ones, isn't K; it's got a couple of curses in it. Anyway, this one is a Garan/Adri one-shot-kind of an insight into what their relationship might've been like. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **Shout-out to all the reviewers! You guys seriously, SERIOUSLY make my day. I'd send you all cookies if a), this wasn't the internet, and b), I didn't suck at baking. Instead I'll settle for a smiley face. :)**

* * *

 _Enough_

I knew I'd catch hell for it later, but I did it anyway.

I never used to use that word. _Hell._ I never used to swear, either, but like so much else, it was something that the world had taught me, dropped on my doorstep and handed-off by happenstance. New, dirty, tantalizing words were thrown down at my feet like a gauntlet: _Shit. Bitch. Fuck. Motherfuck._

They even _sounded_ ugly in my mouth. I could hear the way they resonated, clunky and ugly, turning heads and snatching the air from the room. I didn't use them at first, and I tried not to say the worst of them now, but sometimes the situation called for it. Sometimes there was nothing else to say but a good old-fashioned _dammit._

It felt empowering. That was why I gave into the language, in the end. I had so very little power, just crumbs from his table, and any I could scrounge up was cherished.

That was why I used it now.

"You're an ass," I called over my shoulder, hunching down against the cold.

"Adri, wait!" he shouted. I could hear the sound of his shoes pounding on the pavement, echoing down the deserted street. A hover whipped by, tossing up my curls.

I'd spent hours on those curls when I was getting ready. After all, Garan always said that appearances were so important-that it didn't matter how smart a person was; if they didn't look presentable enough to warrant a conversation, their IQ might as well not be larger than their shoe size.

"That's why I married you, dear," he'd said.

"What?"

"Well, I didn't marry you for your _brains_ ," Garan had said, as if this were obvious. "I married you for your _looks._ "

Now, I just gritted my teeth, increasing my pace. "Go away, Garan! I don't want to see you right now!"

He had always been a better runner than I was, and he wasn't wearing four-inch heels. His arm closed around my elbow. I tried to wrench it away. " _Stop,"_ I said, shoving the hair from my eyes. "Just… _stop._ I don't want to see you, I don't want to look at you-"

"Stop saying things you don't mean, A."

"I _do_ mean them!"

Garan smiled-a patronizing smile, one that made my hair stand on end and my skin crawl. "No, you don't," he said. "You love me."

I stared. I could've thought so many things in that one moment. There were so many things that I wanted to say, out loud, if I'd only had the guts to do something other than hurl a few paltry curses. But all I thought was, _This is all my mother's fault._

She was the one that taught me I wasn't good enough to live on my own. In her defense, it wasn't specific to me; it was generalized to women. "We don't live by ourselves," she'd said, cupping my cheek with a placating smile. I _hated_ it when people were condescending to me. It made me want to stand up and scream. "We marry nice men."

"What if I don't want to marry a man?" I'd said.

"It's just what you _do_ ," she said. "And it's not easy, Adri, dear, believe me. As soon as you find a man, whether you like them or not, you say you love them, and you marry them. Understand?"

I jerked back a bit, as if I'd been stung. "But what if you _don't_ love them?"

"You say it anyway," my mother told me, matter-of-factly. At my scandalized expression, she rolled her eyes. "Come now, Adri. You're naive now-you don't understand that romantic love doesn't exist. _Love_ doesn't exist."

I swallowed. "You don't love me?"

"I _care_ for you, certainly," my mother said. "But love you? No. Oh, now, honey, don't cry. I'm only being honest. _Really,_ Adri, don't be so sensitive."

I'd listened to her. The first man I ever dated was Garan-I never met anyone else. I never loved anyone else. I told him I loved him when I was fifteen, when I didn't mean it, and we got married a year later.

Maybe things would've been different if I'd stayed with my gut, not my mother's. If I never told him that I loved him, if I never married him…

But it was pointless to think about that now. It was what it was. Life didn't stop turning for a single eighteen-year-old girl.

I hated how he held it over me. Garan, that was. He held my untrue declaration of love over me as if I were a house cat jumping for a piece of string. I hated that I jumped even more.

Now, something inside of me snapped. "Do I?" I said, coolly. "Do I _really_ love you?"

"Of course," he said. "You married me."

And that was that. I could've pushed it further, I knew, but what could that lead to? Nothing good, that was certain. Just heartbreak and a whole lot of problems with consequences I wasn't ready to accept. I could just picture walking up to my mother, coming crawling back. What would I even say to her? You were wrong? I was right? You were strong enough to endure years of marriage with a man you didn't love? You were weak enough to endure years of marriage with a man you didn't love? I was weak, I was strong?

Stars only knew. Maybe I was just a coward, but I wasn't going to go that far.

I put a hand to my face. Somewhere inside, I knew the argument wasn't over. "You embarrassed me," I said. "In there. At that gala, with all those stupid snotty people."

"Oh, Adri," Garan said. "You're so sensitive."

I smacked his hand away. "You called me stupid!"

"I never said you were _stupid,_ A."

"You might as well have," I spat. "You used me for humor the whole night."

"Stars above, Adri, you're trying my patience. Honestly. You were a scientist's wife that didn't know anything about the advances in bioelectrical surge detectors. _You_ embarrassed _me._ I had to do _something._ "

" 'At least she's pretty,' " I quoted. (Verbatim.) " 'Can't say I married her for her looks. But she does look charming when she's on my arm, doesn't she, eh?' "

"Oh, for star's sakes," Garan said. "You're making it out to be more than it is."

"You don't _respect_ me, Garan," I whispered, and I was horrified to find tears stinging my eyes. "I'm-I'm _nothing_ to you."

"You're not nothing to me," he said. "You're my wife."

"There that word is again," I cried. " _Wife._ Do you even know what that means? Do you?"

Garan sighed. "Let's just go home, Adri," he said. "You're obviously overtired." He grabbed my arm, about to take me home. "Don't be childish. I said _let's go._ "

I thought about doing what I wanted to do. I thought about going home. I thought about saying the words that were dying to leave my mouth- _fuck you_ -but I didn't. I was willing to catch some hell, but not that much. Not enough. My mother had trained me too well.

I let him take me home. I lay down beside him in the bed that we shared stiff as a wooden board. I felt mechanical; empty. Not enough.

I thought about leaving him. Maybe I'd go see the world-head to the European Federation, visit Paris and New Rome, Berlin and Brussels. Maybe I'd head south to the African Union, or southeast to Australia. I didn't know. Anything was possible.

Until it wasn't. A few weeks later, I found out that I was going to have a little girl.

I took it with a grain of salt and decided I would name her Pearl.

Years later, when Garan walked in the door with a skinny, awkward-boned girl of about eleven with hideous cyborg limbs and deformations, I just stood there, watching. Staring. Some part of me wasn't even surprised. He didn't respect me enough to warn me, or discuss it with me. I was his wife, bought and purchased to look pretty on his arm. Nothing else.

Oh, I fought it, but I knew that I was never going to win. That was how things worked between us.

Some time later, at his funeral, I did him more justice than he deserved by pretending to cry.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry it's kind of a downer; I promise the next one-shot will be lighter. Review and let me know what you think!**

 **Any requests for the next one-shot? Ask away!**


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